‘Why don’t I buy the lot off you?’ said Wainwright.
‘How do we work out a price?’ asked Nightingale.
The American sat down and leaned across to tap cigar ash into a crystal ashtray. ‘How much do you want?’
‘That’s a good question.’ Nightingale sighed as he looked around the basement. ‘But I’ve no idea what they’re worth.’
‘They’re difficult to value, that’s for sure,’ said Wainwright. ‘To someone who doesn’t know their significance, they’re just books. But to someone like your father, or me, they’re close to priceless.’ He swung his feet up onto the coffee table. ‘I could buy them by the yard.’
‘That might work,’ laughed Nightingale.
‘The thing is, a single book could be worth hundreds of thousands or it could be worth nothing. The problem is going to be sorting the wheat from the chaff.’
‘Yeah, my assistant’s been helping me catalogue them but it’s slow going. And all we can do is make a note of the title and author.’
‘You said you’ve done a couple of hundred?’ He leaned back and blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling.
Nightingale nodded. ‘Yeah, there’s a list somewhere.’ He pushed himself up off the sofa and went over to a roll-top desk. He picked up a yellow legal pad and gave it to the American.
Wainwright studied the list and nodded approvingly. ‘Lots of good stuff here,’ he said. He tapped his finger on one of the titles. ‘You were asking about communing with the departed.’
‘I was?’
‘Talking to the dead. There’s a book here that’ll give you the basics. Written by a guy called Daniel Dunglas Home. He was a Scotch but he made his name in the States in the nineteenth century.’
‘Scottish,’ said Nightingale.
‘Huh?’
‘Scotch is the drink. The people are Scottish. Or Scots.’
Wainwright laughed. ‘Sidewalk, pavement, lift, elevator, Scots, Scottish, it never ends, does it?’ He tapped the list again. ‘He wrote a book shortly before he died. It was a very small print run so I’ve never seen a copy but I’m told it’s packed full of info about seances and trance states. He was very well thought of, and they never caught him faking. Have a look at his book. It might answer your questions.’ He looked down at the list, then back at the rows of books. ‘You’ve done what, one per cent? It’s going to take you forever to do the lot.’ He tossed the pad onto the coffee table as Nightingale sat down again.
‘Yeah, it’s a pain too. Most of them don’t have titles on the spines. We have to take them down, copy the details, and put them back. And a lot of them aren’t in English.’
Wainwright leaned forward. ‘How about this?’ he said. ‘You agree to sell me the lot. I’ll send in some of my people to value them, people who know the real value of books like this. You’ll have to trust me, but I can promise you that you won’t be ripped off.’
Nightingale nodded. ‘You’ve played fair with me so far, Joshua,’ he said. ‘I’m okay with that.’
The American held out his hand and Nightingale shook it. ‘Pleasure doing business with you, Jack,’ he said. He sat back and spread his arms across the back of the sofa. ‘Might take a day or two; the people I’m thinking about are based in New Orleans. I’ll send over my jet. Can they stay here while they’re doing the inventory?’
‘There’re plenty of rooms but nothing in the way of furniture,’ said Nightingale. ‘But if they’re okay to rough it I’ll bring in a few camp beds and they can sleep down here. The kitchen’s working and I can put some food in the fridge.’
Wainwright waved his cigar at the lines of display cases that ran down the centre of the basement. ‘What about the rest of the stuff down here? What are you going to do with it?’
‘To be honest, Joshua, I don’t even know what half of it is. There are crystal balls, knives, vials, bones, relics. Weird stuff, but Gosling must have known what he was doing because he spent every penny he had on this collection.’
‘And you’re not thinking of following in his footsteps?’
Nightingale laughed but it came out more as a harsh bark that echoed around the basement like a pistol shot. ‘Me taking up devil-worship? After everything I’ve been through?’
‘You’re not tempted?’
‘Tempted to do what? To sell my soul for money and power?’ He held up his cigarette. ‘Give me a pack of Marlboro, a bottle of Corona and a United game on TV and I’m a happy bunny.’
‘No doubt, but what if you could own United? And watch the game from the director’s box? What if it gave you the freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want?’
‘Are you trying to tempt me, Joshua?’ said Nightingale, narrowing his eyes. ‘Is that what’s going on here?’
The American chuckled and shook his head. ‘You choose your own path, Jack. There has to be free will. I’m just saying, with all this at hand, you’d be a master of the dark arts in no time.’
Nightingale raised an eyebrow. ‘The dark arts? Are you taking the piss?’
Wainwright waved his cigar above his head. ‘I just want you to be sure about what you’re doing here. Your father spent a lifetime assembling this collection and I wouldn’t want you regretting anything down the line.’
‘I just want to get back to my life,’ said Nightingale. ‘I was happy before I got this house and all this crap. Okay, I’m not exactly living the high life but I have enough to get by and enjoy my job.’
‘You enjoy being a gumshoe? Following two-timing husbands and going through trash cans?’
‘There’s more to it than that,’ said Nightingale. ‘But yeah, I enjoy doing what I do. I was happier being a cop, but as a private eye I still get to bring down the occasional bad guy.’
‘Is that what you’re worried about? You think that being a Satanist means you can’t be one of the good guys?’
Nightingale stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. ‘I kind of figured that was the case, yeah.’
‘It’s not about choosing sides. It’s about acquiring power. Power and knowledge. It’s what you do with it that counts. And that’s your choice. Free will, remember?’
‘Yeah, someone else said something similar to me a while back. She said that there was no black magic or white magic, that it was all like electricity and it was up to you whether you used it for good or bad.’
‘She knew what she was talking about,’ said Wainwright.
‘Yeah, but she wasn’t talking about doing deals with devils,’ said Nightingale. ‘In fact, she was totally against that.’
Wainwright waved at the books behind him. ‘The books you’ve got there aren’t all about devils and demons. That’s only a small fraction of what the black arts are about.’
‘Joshua, can I ask you something?’
‘Sure.’
Nightingale leaned forward. ‘Have you done a deal? With a devil?’
Wainwright threw back his head and roared with laughter. Nightingale lit another cigarette as he waited for the American to stop laughing. ‘First of all, if I had done I couldn’t tell you,’ said Wainwright eventually. ‘There’s a little thing called a non-disclosure agreement that means my lips would be sealed. And second of all, it’s none of your darn business.’
Nightingale held up his hands. ‘No offence,’ he said.
Wainwright laughed again. ‘None taken,’ he said. ‘You’re new to this so I’ll cut you some slack. But asking who’s done what deal with who just isn’t done.’
Nightingale took a long pull on his cigarette.
‘So do you want to sell all the artefacts too?’ asked Wainwright.
‘Sure. They’re no use to me.’
‘That’s what I’m saying, Jack. Maybe it could be of use to you.’ He stood up and went over to one of the display cases. It was full of earthenware pots, each one with strange markings on it. Wainwright nodded at the pots. ‘Can I.?.?.?’
‘Sure, knock yourself out,’ said Nightingale.
Wainwright opened the cabinet door and took out a dark brown urn. He eased off the top, sniffed it cautiously and then frowned.
